Deep Listening: A Practice of Presence

Hi, everybody. My name is Susie Fahrer, and I am the Executive Director of Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School. We are at the start of another school year, and it’s bringing us close to one of my most favorite traditions here, which is how we open a year in partnership with our families. And it’s called a listening conference.

But before we can really talk about the full breadth of the purpose behind a listening conference, we need to understand a fundamental value and skill that we cultivate here at Rainbow in the process of deep listening.

What Is Deep Listening?

So what is deep listening? Really, it’s asking us to think differently about how we receive information from our surroundings. It could be another person; it could be the natural world.

First and foremost, it requires a level of presence that asks us to really deactivate our natural tendencies, to be thinking about our responses, to be cultivating our reactions, possibly even judgments, to what we’re hearing, and just to purely create a space of receiving.

This practice really asks us to think wholeheartedly about the other persons or beings that we are receiving information from.

Deep Listening and the Family-School Partnership

So in this case, when we think about a listening conference, it’s: what are we receiving from a child’s family in partnership for growing a really valuable relationship of learning for the year?

And as our families sit down with us at a listening conference, our teachers inherently create a space of “presence and pause.” We open with some type of provocation, usually centering the child, maybe a little breathwork, and really naming that this is the time for the family to share all of the ways that their child’s light is being brought into this universe, the way that they hope their child will grow, the way they hope their child will be honored.

Listening to Understand the Whole Child

And questions of, you know, how can we be in partnership with you? What do you see as your child’s greatest motivations and strengths? What lights them up? What brings them joy? How can we ensure that their time here grows their curiosity, grows their love of learning? And how can we do that in ways that support your family’s values, your cultural traditions? Right?

What can we invite into this space that really helps your child’s soul come into the room and be with us in that moment, and it sets our teachers up, and our families up for a year of returning to these questions of purpose and returning to the depth of what they believe they heard, ensuring there’s a level of follow-through and connection.

It invites a process of really seeing each child for who they are, in ways that are both incredibly concrete: how they show up in their math classroom, what ways they foster friendship in a community, and ways that are perhaps hard to define, you know, where can we support their emotional growth? What big wonderings and questions are lighting them up in the spiritual domain?

Returning to the Practice of Deep Listening

So we offer this space not just as an initial seed to a wonderful year together learning, but also as a reminder that we always have the ability to come back to a practice of deep listening.

When we are sitting across from an individual trying to foster a conversation that matters, trying to create space for honesty and vulnerability, and recognition of the work it takes to grow children together and to ensure that they are stepping into a lifelong love of learning, which is ultimately what we hope to create here at Rainbow.

Listening With Presence and Heart

Attached, you’ll find some suggestions about how to really think deeper on listening with presence and heart, and ways to continue to consider what the power is behind relationships, where deep listening is part of that context.

As always, if you are a part of our community, I would love to have a conversation with you about your child… create space for deep listening and partnership with you.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about Rainbow, feel free to book a tour or reach out to me personally. I’m always happy to have a conversation about how we foster a culture that supports not just our children and families here at Rainbow, but grows a loving and kind community for all. Be well.

Learn More

Continue exploring ideas from our Director’s Kaleidoscope series, including topics like executive functioning, student autonomy, and project-based learning.